MONTREAL — One of Canada’s most famous restaurants has come forward with its own tale of troubles with Quebec’s language watchdog, days after a flap over the word pasta made international headlines.

Montreal’s Joe Beef, which has been featured on international cooking shows and has a best-selling book, is the latest restaurant to complain about the Office quebecois de la langue francaise.

This time it apparently came down to some wall art containing English words.

Owner David McMillan said inspectors took issue with a memento from a Prince Edward Island beach that says “exit” and an antique sign above the staff bathroom that says “please leave this gate closed.”

They thought another item, an old sign from a Tennessee butcher, was part of the restaurant’s menu, he said.

McMillan said he was shocked by the lack of understanding of the inspectors, who were young and seemed like “deer in headlights.”

He said the visit left a sour taste, but added he has no plans to move his celebrated restaurant elsewhere any time soon.

“I love Quebec… but it’s not getting any easier,” McMillan, who is completely bilingual, said in an interview Saturday.

“My wife is French, my business partner is French, my children go to French school, but I just get so sad and depressed and wonder, what’s wrong with these people?”

McMillan decided to keep most of the art up, except for the bathroom sign, which he wanted to take home.

The restaurant wasn’t threatened with a fine and they haven’t heard from the language cops recently, he said.

“We wrote a letter back, explaining how each one of the items mentioned was a gift, a memento… stuff that restaurants have on walls,” he said.

The office could not be reached for comment Saturday.

McMillan stressed that the restaurant’s menu is in French only and all the staff are bilingual.

‘I just get so sad and depressed and wonder, what’s wrong with these people?’

The Joe Beef cook book, which McMillan has called “a love affair with this province,” includes tributes to traditional Quebec cooking and culture. It was published in both French and English.

Inspectors visited the restaurant four or five months ago, McMillan said, but he only decided to come forward after an Italian restaurant revealed earlier this week that it had been targeted for using Italian words — including “pasta” — on its menu.

The OQLF backed down after the case erupted into a media frenzy, citing an exception for cultural products. McMillan said the public outcry over that incident gave him the courage to come forward.

“When we first started getting letters from them and the visits from the inspectors, we were just scared of doing anything,” he said.

“I had enough followers on Twitter to make a stink out of it, but we just felt alone.”

Graham Hughes / THe Canadian PressMassimo Lecas, co-owner of Buonanotte restaurant, poses for a photograph with a menu at the restaurant in Montreal.

Under the Parti Quebecois government, the OQLF has received a 6% budget increase this year, to $24.7 million, in an effort to protect the French language.

Many linguistic nationalists worry that any erosion of French in Montreal could, eventually, lead to its disappearance.

But following the controversy coined “pastagate” online, the government minister responsible said the agency would be more careful in future.

It was a significant swing for the PQ, which had pushed for stricter enforcement of the province’s language laws while in opposition.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/following-pastagate-famous-montreal-restaurant-goes-public-about-its-own-language-police-run-in/feed9stdJoe-BeefGraham Hughes / THe Canadian PressQuebec admits it used an 'excess of zeal' in crackdown on language on Italian restaurant's menuhttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/quebec-admits-it-used-an-excess-of-zeal-in-crackdown-on-language-on-italian-restaurants-menu
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/quebec-admits-it-used-an-excess-of-zeal-in-crackdown-on-language-on-italian-restaurants-menu#commentsThu, 21 Feb 2013 17:51:03 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=272448

MONTREAL — The Quebec government says its language watchdog was a little too aggressive in pursuing an Italian restaurant for excessive use of Italian on its menu.

The provincial minister responsible for language says she realizes there was an “excess of zeal.”

Diane De Courcy says adjustments will be made in the specific case of the Montreal restaurant Buonanotte.

National Post Photo IllustrationQuebec’s language police have told an Italian restaurant in Montreal that menu items, including polpette, pasta and insalata caprese, must be translated into French. In the case of the salad, they were unable to suggest an alternative.

Speaking more generally, she says similar mistakes won’t be made in the future. She says the Office Quebecois de la langue francaise will be more careful to use a loophole in the application of the language law that offers some leeway for foreign cultural and food products.

It’s an abrupt reversal of roles for the Parti Quebecois government — which has spent years, since its days in opposition, urging the Office to apply the law more strictly.

The organization has even received a 6 per cent budget increase this year, to $24.7 million.

The agency recently visited the Montreal eatery after receiving a citizen’s complaint, and it agreed that certain words on the menu needed to be switched to French.

Among them: “pasta,” “calamari” and “bottiglia” (which means “bottle” in Italian). They did leave the word “pizza” alone.

“They told me ‘polpette’ [Italian meatball] should be ‘boulettes de viande,’ so I asked them what to call ‘insalata caprese,’” said Massimo Lecas, owner of the Buonanotte restaurant, referring to a southern Italian tomato and mozzarella salad.

The case created an uproar in social media — in both English and French. A number of Italian Quebecers, meanwhile, joked about how they would never relinquish their right to eat pasta.

“My menu is completely French, what I have in Italian are the names of my dishes,” said Mr. Lecas.

Each Italian name on the menu is also immediately followed by its French description. Below “insalata mista,” for instance, the dish is identified in French as a mixed salad.

The incident also encouraged other business owners to go public with their disputes with the OQLF.

One included a British-style fish and chips restaurant that said it was being forced to lose the “fish and chips,” and another was a different Italian restaurant that was told to change its sign to translate “ristorante.”

More than any other industry, the culinary world is awash with foreign words, many of them French, including “amuse-bouche,” “bouillon” and even the word “cuisine” itself.

In Calgary alone, at least 50 restaurants serve “poutine” rather than “cheese-and-gravy fries.”

Nevertheless, Quebec’s world-renowned restaurant scene has often been a target of Quebec language authorities.

In 2000, an Indian restaurateur was threatened with a $7,000 fine for giving customers cardboard coasters imprinted with the phrase “Canada’s No. 1 selling British ale.”

In 2005, Montreal’s Monkland Tavern was forced to spend $10,000 to add an ‘e’ to its vintage 1950s neon sign to make the name French.

And 10 years ago, when Quebec-born racing driver Jacques Villeneuve opened a nightspot named “Newtown,” a direct English translation of his last name, Quebec’s language authorities received ample complaints about the name — but it was exempt because it was a registered trademark.

The spectre of a language violation has resulted in plenty of oddly homogeneous menus in Quebec.

At Montreal’s Restaurant Alpenhaus, the only German word on the menu is strudel — and even there, the proprietors have made sure to put the word in quotation marks.

Nevertheless, down the street from Buonanotte, the Spanish restaurant La Sala Rosa freely serves up “calamares,” “chorizo” and “ensalada.” And at Au Petit Extra, a French bistro just south of Parc Lafontaine, diners can order a “cocktail”— a word of conspicuously English origin.

“Let’s look at the big picture here, you walk into an Italian restaurant and you validate its authenticity by how much they know of Italian culture,” said Mr. Lecas.

“The more you’re surrounded by it, the more you can feel like you’re in Florence: The waiter has an Italian accent, a family member is in the kitchen making the gnocchi — where is all of that in this conversation?”

As one supporter noted on Mr. Lecas’ Twitter feed on Wednesday, Quebec language authorities have yet to crack down on Montreal’s many sushi restaurants for not advertising their product as “poisson cru variées sur boule de riz.”

An Italian restaurant in Montreal has found itself in the disapproving crosshairs of Quebec’s language police for using Italian names for dishes on its menu — despite the fact that French names for some of the dishes do not even exist.

“They told me ‘polpette’ [Italian meatball] should be ‘boulettes de viande,’ so I asked them what to call ‘insalata caprese,’” said Massimo Lecas, owner of the Buonanotte restaurant, referring to a southern Italian tomato and mozzarella salad.

National Post Photo IllustrationQuebec’s language police have told an Italian restaurant in Montreal that menu items, including polpette, pasta and insalata caprese, must be translated into French. In the case of the salad, they were unable to suggest an alternative.

“We’ve asked them what they would recommend, and they don’t even have answers,” he added.

On Tuesday, Mr. Lecas received a detailed letter from the Office québécois de la langue française citing him in violation of the Charter of the French Language for peppering his menu with words such as “pasta,” “pesce,” “antipasti,” “calamari” and, on the wine list, the Italian word for “bottle.”

“My menu is completely French, what I have in Italian are the names of my dishes,” said Mr. Lecas.

Each Italian name on the menu is also immediately followed by its French description. Below “insalata mista,” for instance, the dish is identified in French as a mixed salad.

Notably, the word “pizza” escaped the language office’s ire.

Martin Bergeron, spokesman for the office, said there are exceptions under the language law when there is no equivalent French term and if that’s the case the matter is usually dropped.

Otherwise, French terms are preferred under the law.

Mr. Lecas said he still has to meet with the agency.

The news of the language agency’s intervention caused a storm on social media and Diane De Courcy, Quebec’s minister in charge of the language law, promised to look into the matter.

Meanwhile, Jean-Francois Lisée, the minister responsible for anglophones and Montreal, told CTV News that the language office’s concern over the use of the word pasta might be “overdone.”

More than any other industry, the culinary world is awash with foreign words, many of them French, including “amuse-bouche,” “bouillon” and even the word “cuisine” itself.

In Calgary alone, at least 50 restaurants serve “poutine” rather than “cheese-and-gravy fries.”

Nevertheless, Quebec’s world-renowned restaurant scene has often been a target of Quebec language authorities.

In 2000, an Indian restaurateur was threatened with a $7,000 fine for giving customers cardboard coasters imprinted with the phrase “Canada’s No. 1 selling British ale.”

In 2005, Montreal’s Monkland Tavern was forced to spend $10,000 to add an ‘e’ to its vintage 1950s neon sign to make the name French.

And 10 years ago, when Quebec-born racing driver Jacques Villeneuve opened a nightspot named “Newtown,” a direct English translation of his last name, Quebec’s language authorities received ample complaints about the name — but it was exempt because it was a registered trademark.

Language enforcement in Quebec is heavily complaint-driven, and Mr. Lecas’ episode began with a September visit from a language inspector who arrived after the office was contacted by an anonymous complainant.

The spectre of a language violation has resulted in plenty of oddly homogeneous menus in Quebec.

At Montreal’s Restaurant Alpenhaus, the only German word on the menu is strudel — and even there, the proprietors have made sure to put the word in quotation marks.

Nevertheless, down the street from Buonanotte, the Spanish restaurant La Sala Rosa freely serves up “calamares,” “chorizo” and “ensalada.” And at Au Petit Extra, a French bistro just south of Parc Lafontaine, diners can order a “cocktail”— a word of conspicuously English origin.

“Let’s look at the big picture here, you walk into an Italian restaurant and you validate its authenticity by how much they know of Italian culture,” said Mr. Lecas.

“The more you’re surrounded by it, the more you can feel like you’re in Florence: The waiter has an Italian accent, a family member is in the kitchen making the gnocchi — where is all of that in this conversation?”

As one supporter noted on Mr. Lecas’ Twitter feed on Wednesday, Quebec language authorities have yet to crack down on Montreal’s many sushi restaurants for not advertising their product as “poisson cru variées sur boule de riz.”

National Post, with files from The Canadian Press

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/quebec-language-police/feed18stdMassimo Lecas, co-owner of Buonanotte restaurant, poses for a photograph with a menu at the restaurant in Montreal.National Post Photo Illustration